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Concerning Legends in E4 and Champion Battles

Recently in the Discord TC it looks like there's been a lot of heated discussion regarding whether or not to ban legends altogether, or keep the option of Legend Clause in the hands of the defenders alone. Since there remains contention on the matter, I'd like to formally propose a compromise of sorts. The proposal is as follows:

In all battles E4 and up, in order for Legendary Clause to be turned OFF, it must be agreed upon by both the defender and challenger. In the event that both parties cannot agree, the default status is for Legendary Clause to be ON. Furthermore, since a Legendary Pokemon must be part of an E4 (or Champion) roster, if Legendary Clause is frequently turned on as a result of this, the challengers may feel cheated out of one of their limited roster slots. To address this, I would also like to include in this proposal that E4 and Champion rosters be given a 16th slot exclusively to use for a Legendary Pokemon. With this inclusion, the 15 main roster slots cannot contain any Legendary Pokemon for the sake of future proofing.

This proposal addresses several of the concerns brought up previously, namely:

Without allowing Legendary Pokemon in high tier battling, they have very little use at all. This still allows them to be useful, and justifies earning and buying EMs for Legends

Both challengers and defenders who do not have a Legend are never forced to face one

Defenders who do have a Legendary Pokemon in their roster do not lose a team slot whenever the Legendary Clause is active

Please leave any comments or concerns below, so that if there are any issues with the proposal, they can be resolved or the proposal can be stopped before it makes it to Staff. Thank you for your time.

My main problem with this is the same problem I have with just outright banning Legends in E4 and Champion battles. This change is effectively the same; it discourages the use of a legend in one of the last places it’s actually useful in. FFAs, casual battles, and creative sections are well and good, but not only are most (and only most because Magearna exists) Legends hated out very rapidly in FFAs, but there is also definitely a culture of shunning people from using them in casual battles.

i don’t think this will be an isolated issue either. Like it or not, a LOT of section activity has been incentivized by the Legend system. Whether that’s healthy or not I really can’t say, but I like to think any addition of a goal for helping people play the game is a positive (in the same way that WaR and SWC/WWC encourage longer writing pieces, and Event Park Runs incentivize activity). However, this game also LOVES battles. Everything you do will inevitably be towards a battling end (buying pokemon, writing for mons, drawing for cash, going into the park all move towards an end of obtaining pokemon, buying moves and items for battles). This doesn’t just disincentivize putting work into a section for an E4 legend; this disincentivizes getting a Legend in the first place. If I can just say “No, you put a lot of work into getting a Legend but you’re not allowed to use it in one of the last places it can actually be fun to use”, then the first thought I’d have as a defender or even as a potential challenger is, “why bother?”

In the end, I think this change will not only impact E4/Champion battle negatively, but also impact section growth at a time where we all know the sections are just getting back on their feet. I can understand wanting Legends as a trophy (I did it for Arceus, believe me, I get it), but in the end this game’s endpoint is battling and having EM’d mons; discouraging even owning a Legend because you’ll never have to fight them is shortsighted.

(P.S. another thing to consider with this is people already owning a Legend but not wanting to/having a bad matchup against a Defender’s Legend, and just making it easier for themselves to ban Legends altogether. This is, again, just discouraging getting Legends)

EDIT: And if I may be so salty to say this, this conversation in TC started with giving more options to the defender, I really don't understand why we moved from that to taking them away. I can sympathize more with leaving Megas and Z-Crystals permanently allowed now than I did before, but I can't understand why we moved from potentially updating defender permissions to give them more options to defend their post with, to taking away one of the permissions they have had.

Last edited by weirlind120; 05-13-18 at 01:11 PM.

Abras are so cute!
Joined URPG 1/28/2017!
Competitive Showdown player
TEAM A.C.T. ALL THE WAY

All good points, and unfortunately it's hard to tell just how frequently this proposed change will be used, or even exploited by others just because they don't have a good match up, or simply just don't want to face down a Mega Rayquaza. The only way we'd be able to do so it to see it in action, and for all we know this could result in a week or month of people trying to take down the top end of battling by dodging Legendaries.
On the other hand, I for one find Legendaries to be rather intimidating, and when one of the ways of getting to the end of a section is gated by having to take down something like Rayquaza or any other Pokemon that takes a couple of mine, and not having something of my own that can put a similar dent in the opposing team just feels a little hopeless. Among other reasons, that causes me to feel a bit of a 'why bother' feeling as well. I have a feeling I'm not the only one.

The question is does someone's opinion on the subject matter more? If so whose means more, the people who won their trophies? The people trying to win theirs? Which avoids more discouragement; risking Legends having less use and discouraging activity just to earn them, or risking them running rampant and discouraging potential E4 challengers, and even defenders?

If Legend Clause is OFF: Permanently allow the use of Z-Moves/Megas for Defender AND Challenger on ALL Non-Legend mons (legends cannot use these boosts).
If Legend Clause is ON: Defender can turn the Z-Moves/Mega Clause ON to prevent use from both sides or keep them on.

Please note this also includes ULTRA BURST AND PRIMALS.

tl;dr
If Legend Clause is OFF, Z-Moves/Megas is a default OFF (can be decided by challenger).
If Legend Clause is ON, Z-Moves/Megas can be ON or OFF (can be decided by defender).

I really like DK's idea and I don't want to see it go away. Legends in competitive play is a huge problem - not necessarily in practice, but because they completely derail any conversation we have about the format. I get that people want to play with their hard-earned trophies, but at the same time most of us don't have them, and that does need to be considered too. Especially with us trying to attract new blood, having these megaliths is hugely intimidating to a newcomer. It's going to take me at least a full year to get to the EM status where I would feel comfortable challenging high tier battles, and at the same time, they'll have another year to keep advancing. That means more legends in circulation, more time to build EMs and get more practice battling.

I also agree that there's a stigma to using legends in random matches. I don't agree that it's a problem. If Weir rolls and sends his Arceus against me, or Julio his Marshadow, the match is over. It may still take a handful of rounds to make it official but that's the end of the match. Maybe if the two of them were fighting they'd enjoy the chance to try, but at what point is getting steamrolled fun for me? Luckily I've matched against people who exclude their legends from casual battles, but that's not a guarantee. I don't think this is unique to legends though - any 'mon they've spent the money to build up is going to be a nightmare, for the most part. It's why I'd rather see a tier system for battlers than for Pokemon for example.

If DK's rule turns out in practice to be a ban, and it doesn't help, then we can re-evaluate it. How about we try a few E4 matches with it in place and see if it wildly unbalances the fight in favor of one side or the other. I think that it's too big a problem right now to wait until we maybe have another brand new kind of content, when some variation of this argument will be cropping up once a month.

I really like DK's idea and I don't want to see it go away. Legends in competitive play is a huge problem - not necessarily in practice, but because they completely derail any conversation we have about the format. I get that people want to play with their hard-earned trophies, but at the same time most of us don't have them, and that does need to be considered too. Especially with us trying to attract new blood, having these megaliths is hugely intimidating to a newcomer. It's going to take me at least a full year to get to the EM status where I would feel comfortable challenging high tier battles, and at the same time, they'll have another year to keep advancing. That means more legends in circulation, more time to build EMs and get more practice battling.

I also agree that there's a stigma to using legends in random matches. I don't agree that it's a problem. If Weir rolls and sends his Arceus against me, or Julio his Marshadow, the match is over. It may still take a handful of rounds to make it official but that's the end of the match. Maybe if the two of them were fighting they'd enjoy the chance to try, but at what point is getting steamrolled fun for me? Luckily I've matched against people who exclude their legends from casual battles, but that's not a guarantee. I don't think this is unique to legends though - any 'mon they've spent the money to build up is going to be a nightmare, for the most part. It's why I'd rather see a tier system for battlers than for Pokemon for example.

If DK's rule turns out in practice to be a ban, and it doesn't help, then we can re-evaluate it. How about we try a few E4 matches with it in place and see if it wildly unbalances the fight in favor of one side or the other. I think that it's too big a problem right now to wait until we maybe have another brand new kind of content, when some variation of this argument will be cropping up once a month.

A big problem with this way of thinking is, in my opinion, E4 should be a hurdle to overcome, a megalith as you word it. You're earning a Legend, which in theory we could make just another participation trophy like we do with the rest of the legends if we keep limiting where they can be used, but additionally you get any mon in the game. Any mon, for free, instantly, and nerfing how hard it is to get to that stage is again, shortsighted. E4 shouldn't be something everyone does, it should be something people work their way towards, in their sections and activity, to challenge when they are prepared.

Thats also the problem with a trial run of this. If E4 is made easier, even for a week, and someone takes advantage of it and beats the E4/Champ when its fundamentally weaker than it should be (feel free to disagree on that), then we have a new champion who took advantage of a trial system and there's not much we can do about that.

Abras are so cute!
Joined URPG 1/28/2017!
Competitive Showdown player
TEAM A.C.T. ALL THE WAY

A big problem with this way of thinking is, in my opinion, E4 should be a hurdle to overcome, a megalith as you word it. You're earning a Legend, which in theory we could make just another participation trophy like we do with the rest of the legends if we keep limiting where they can be used, but additionally you get any mon in the game. Any mon, for free, instantly, and nerfing how hard it is to get to that stage is again, shortsighted. E4 shouldn't be something everyone does, it should be something people work their way towards, in their sections and activity, to challenge when they are prepared.

Thats also the problem with a trial run of this. If E4 is made easier, even for a week, and someone takes advantage of it and beats the E4/Champ when its fundamentally weaker than it should be (feel free to disagree on that), then we have a new champion who took advantage of a trial system and there's not much we can do about that.

As much as I am weary about this rule if we do a trial run, it doesn't have to actually count towards E4 progress. In fact, it should be under SR discretion whether or not it does.

I don't think your idea is strong enough to make it useful. Is this compromise only apllicable to the challengers that don't have legends? These considerations lead to unessesary complications. I thought about keeping only say T3 or T2 legends in the E4, but even then that's complex and will spark even more controversy. I think Monbrey's idea to go all or nothing is the simplest and most effective. I vote to keep it. It took so long to get here. While I'm ok without using Groudon, I literally can't use it elsewhere and nullifies the hard work I put into getting it. E4 is optional and if you can't handle the challenge and yet alone the champion, then why are you going through the gyms. It takes so much work to get through the gyms due to their varied strats and styles. Not to mention that you grow so much if you just keep pushing yourself to get better and better. By the time you reach E4 you should be prepared to handle anything.

T1 pokemon can be quick banned because they bring forth just stupidly tough power that is generally no real way to win against
T2 pokemon like Marshadow, Magearna, Zapdos, all four Tapus, etc bring forth a modest challenge and are appropriate for a high level pokemon battle
T3 pokemon like regis, cosmog, poipole can be allowed to the disadvantage and caution of the e4.

Ironing out the pokemon is a source of debate, but once the kinks are ironed out, then I don't see a problem lol.

T1 pokemon can be quick banned because they bring forth just stupidly tough power that is generally no real way to win against
T2 pokemon like Marshadow, Magearna, Zapdos, all four Tapus, etc bring forth a modest challenge and are appropriate for a high level pokemon battle
T3 pokemon like regis, cosmog, poipole can be allowed to the disadvantage and caution of the e4.

Ironing out the pokemon is a source of debate, but once the kinks are ironed out, then I don't see a problem lol.

The problem is people who did $1m of work for a Pokemon that is no longer usable.